Mallya wants FOTA to embrace Force India back

After breaking ranks with FOTA teams and lodging an unconditional entry for 2010 F1 season, Force India were suspended from FOTA.

Mallya has made it clear to FOTA that he had no choice but to lodge an unconditional entry because of banking covenants.

“I have only been told by John [Howett], who is vice-chairman of FOTA executive committee, today for the very first time that the executive committee, when they had a teleconference call last week, that they decided to suspend us when we changed our entry to an unconditional entry.

“All I said to John was, the circumstances of Force India are quite different to the circumstances of Williams – first and foremost I was completely transparent with FOTA and gave them copies of correspondence with my bankers and lawyers.

“Basically F1, like in the case of any other business, relies on its bankers to provide ongoing capital support. As you would in any business, you go to the bank and demonstrate sources of income, the sources of income are from sponsorship and the disbursement of revenue from FOM arising out of the television income that you are fully aware of.

“Both these sources of income, which are sources of comfort for banks to lend money, would have been under threat if our entry was not accepted. So therefore we were legally advised that Force India might breach our banking covenants if we went down the route of a conditional entry and did not lodge an unconditional entry as always. All of this was completely shared with FOTA.” said Mallya